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Extreme New Year

Around this time many people stop, consider their life mission and set resolutions. Ongoing studies show that around 78% of these resolutions are never kept or achieved, which means around 22% are kept or achieved. If you are in the larger group that too often misses annual goals, which can lead to disappointment or if you are in the smaller group that reach your resolutions, but finds faint satisfaction in getting what you thought you wanted, I offer two very different goal setting approaches to consider for 2012.

First is a free online tool for people who can’t think of what resolutions they want to make for the new year. It is called The Resolution Generator. Just click the GIMME MORE button at the bottom of the web page and one resolution after another appears for your consideration, choosing and semiconscious commitment.

The second option is an excerpt from the book What Color is your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles. It offers a 180 degree different perspective on this topic and an action plan. It is called “Your Three Mission in Life” or ” How to Find Your Mission in Life.” Here is a shortened version:

” (1) Your first Mission here on Earth is one which you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and it is, to seek out and find, in daily — even hourly — communication, the One from whom your Mission is derived. The Missioner before the Mission is the rule.
(2) Secondly, once you have begun doing that in an earnest way, your second Mission here on Earth is also one which you share with the rest of the human race, and that is, to do what you can, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place, following the leading and guidance of God’s Spirit within you and around you.
(3) Thirdly, once you have begun doing that a serious way, your third Mission here on Earth is one which is uniquely yours, and that is: a) to exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use — your greatest gift, which you most delight to use, b) in the place(s) or setting(s) which God has caused to appeal to you the most, c) and for those purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.”
When this 3 part approach is fleshed out, I think you will find that career and life resolution setting will be easier and, most likely, more successful, but not nearly as expeditious as the first option.

Journal Entry: I thought about offering another more middle of the road approach, a kind of lukewarm activity that lies comfortably between the extremes of the Resolution Generator and Three Missions, but I have learned that it is better to be either hot or cold when going after what you want in your leadership and life.

One of the toughest decisions is realizing that you have to make one. – Doug Dyer

It’s a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. – W. Somerset Maugham

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